Warhammer: Hail to the Void Lords!

Chapter 484 06.0483: ‘Over-interpretation’

Horatio was thinking about countermeasures. There was no doubt that the Tau Empire’s Barracuda fighters would arrive before the light cruisers.

In the face of the speed of the carrier-based aircraft, the slow-accelerating Epic might not even have the last five minutes to attack.

Just as Horatio was carefully thinking about how to make a decision.

“Captain.” Anya Fasha’s voice sounded from the side.

He turned his head and saw the eight pilots of the Skyhawk 1 ready to go, saluting him together.

“Let’s lead the enemy fighters away.” The female pilot with smooth chocolate skin said firmly, holding a flight helmet in her arms, and her big wavy black and brown hair swayed.

“It’s too dangerous to rely on only your four fighters.” Horatio said as he looked at the waves that continued to spread on the battle situation picture frequency sent by Harvey. These waves had at least 12 source points.

That is to say, the enemy fighters released 12 Barracudas in the first batch alone.

1:3 combat power, how to fight this.

"Please rest assured, Captain, we have experience in fighting these alien enemy aircraft. As long as we launch a sudden harassment, hit and run, lead them away, and then cooperate with the carrier-based aircraft released by other attack ships in the distant airspace, we can surround and annihilate the pursuers."

"The plan is feasible." Horatio pondered for a moment and nodded slightly. Fasha showed his canine teeth excitedly.

"But..." He suddenly added: "You, especially you, Fasha, are not allowed to launch attacks without regard for your own safety. I want all of you to come back alive."

Her eyes suddenly widened, and her brown eyes flashed with a moving luster, like a piece of brown amber, warm and transparent.

"Of course, Captain~" She raised the corners of her mouth and smiled: "We will..."

Before Fasha finished speaking, Horatio raised his index finger to his lips to indicate that she should not set a flag.

She immediately understood, saluted with all the members of the Skyhawk Squadron, and then rushed to the rear ridge hangar with her long legs.

"All ships, continue to prepare for battle."

The right engine of the lone heavy equipment carrier flashed intermittently, and it was obvious that the power supply was not smooth. This was a phenomenon of ion source short circuit in the energy transmission pipeline.

The power supply pipeline on its oblique side was torn apart. Now only one-third of the original pipeline was still transmitting ion sources, and the speed also dropped to 6 void knots.

The Epic followed the gas cloud layer and touched the flank of the lone cargo ship unnoticed.

The slide cover of the No. 2 torpedo launch bay opened, revealing its ferocious fangs.

Thirty thousand kilometers away, the Tau Empire's Barracuda air superiority fighter formation rushed from afar.

They have beautiful shapes, and the excellent aerodynamic layout in the setting combines the controllability of the atmosphere and the void.

However, it is not without shortcomings. According to relevant reports, its speed is even slightly lower than that of the Thunder Fighter, not to mention the Lightning Air Superiority Fighter and the Furious Interceptor, which is faster than the Lightning.

The Barracuda fighter has a similar structure to the Thunder Fighter, and has a thick and fierce rotary machine gun.

But what's interesting is that its Gatling-type ion revolver cannon is not centered, but slightly to the left.

There are multiple missile attachment points on the lower part of the fuselage, which are equipped with advanced missiles assisted by artificial intelligence.

These fighters are piloted by pilots of the Qi clan. Because of their genetic structure, the Qi clan has a stronger three-dimensional situational awareness ability and better tolerance to acceleration than human pilots.

This naturally makes the Qi clan a gifted pilot, but the experience of the top pilots in the empire has brought them a strong advantage, which makes the Qi clan admire and pursue them.

However, with a short physiological lifespan of only forty years, and entering old age in their thirties, it is difficult for them to surpass those elite or even ace human pilots in terms of experience accumulation and attainments.

Therefore, the artificial intelligence on board will help them try their best to shorten these gaps.

"This is the Pi # bos Squadron, speeding to escort the Il' Merchant-class, HX229 merchant fleet."

"This is the K # vi Squadron, no enemies have been found in the surrounding airspace yet."

An Air Clan pilot looked at the holographic dial hovering in front of him and reported calmly.

But as soon as he finished speaking, a dense lock-on warning came from the side.

"Correction! Enemy attack in the 270 direction! Repeat! Enemy attack in the 270 direction!"

The Barracuda fighter group urgently evaded, dragging azure ion flames, and the powerful rocket-assisted engines made their maneuvers appear light and agile.

Faced with the unexpected attack, many Barracuda fighters released interference barrages together, and they also had two tactical drones on both wings, some of which were equipped with ion cannons and some with wave frequency jammers.

This passive defense jammer can make them appear distorted and wrong on the enemy radar, acting as electronic warfare aircraft in the group.

Missiles flew over the sky and exploded in the fleet.

Although the scene was grand, the effective hit rate of this wave of missiles created the lowest record in the air battles Horatio had ever seen.

Less than 20% of the Barracudas were hit, and less than 10% of them were completely destroyed.

But this did not affect the success of the Skyhawk Squadron's lure plan itself.

After the missiles of the four fighters were empty, they deliberately exposed their positions, and then continued to maintain radiation control to hide the identity of their attackers.

Everything looked natural.

Faced with an unknown number of enemies who were obviously ready, the captains of the Barracuda fighter squadrons exchanged some ideas and decided to report the situation to the mother ship first and wait for the next instruction.

After judging the type of ship that the Empire had used in the battle in this star region and could carry carrier-based aircraft, the Tau Empire mothership judged that the opponent might be a cruiser-class Imperial battleship.

After all, in the Empire, except for some rare and bold captains, few people dared to fight independently in a large-scale military conflict with a single ship.

In other words, it is very likely that a highly skilled Imperial cruiser detachment attacked XH229!

Ether, who served as the fleet commander, rubbed the golden and silver scepter with his four azure fingers, carefully pondering the Empire's intentions.

[With the style of the human Empire, it would never dare to fight a single ship so recklessly. ]

"Calling the commander of the commerce raider serving as the vanguard fleet."

A projected head of a fire warrior with long braids appeared in front of Ether: "What are your orders, sir?"

"Commander of commerce raiders, immediately slow down the pursuit."

"Why?" The commander of the Fire Clan commerce raiders seemed very surprised: "The enemy is destroying our remaining merchant ships, we must save them!"

"The enemy may be a cruiser or a battlecruiser, and our flight formation claims to have been attacked by missiles from enemy aviation units."

"This is impossible! Our radar did not detect any trace of large enemy ships at all. Shadow."

"In fact, we were attacked by Imperial aircraft. The Empire has few warships that can carry aviation units. The only ones that may appear here are those cruisers."

"But..."

"No buts, Commander of the Diplomatic Reconnaissance, I must be responsible for the safety of the entire fleet. For the sake of the Greater Good, you must obey my orders, stop the pursuit, and assemble with my fleet, so that we can deal with these vicious hostiles without any mistakes."

"..."The commander of the Diplomatic Reconnaissance gritted his teeth: "Yes, Commander."

Soon, the Tau Empire's vanguard light cruiser slowed down its speed.